A Formal Goodbye to the Foodies Blogs

Dear Foodies.

I write this post on Christmas Eve (in Singapore) to formally wish you all a fond farewell and to announce the ending of our foodie blogs. These blogs won't be taken offline; rather, I'll keep them online for the sake of memory and archive purposes, at least for another year or two. But let me explain my reasons for officially ending the blogs here:

There's nothing sadder than a blog that purports to still be alive and kicking, but in actuality is dead. I don't want the same fate to befall our blogs--to have people post very, very occasionally and to have nobody comment or no other posts follow.

Think of this as a metaphorical "pulling the plug" on a comatose blog, and then preserving the blog in a bottle full of formaldehyde. But without the same problematic ethical issues which would arise if the blog were a human being.

I've enjoyed being part of this blog very much, and have enjoyed reading all the posts and comments you've all contributed to this online community!

Without further ado, I bid you all farewell and Happy Christmas!

Sincerely,

Dr. Tiff

break with sandwich

Dr. Tiff, you are right. Now, the blog becomes really quiet, just like dorm. I am the only person in my room. Most of my friends have already left. Dinning hall is closed. It chilly outside. What I am supposed to do???

Yesterday, I went to Target and Publix to buy the food for next week (I am leaving on Dec 19th). Here is all food I am going to survive with:

As you can see, they are all healthy. Egg, milk, and beef provide protein. Carrot and apple have plenty of vitamins. Bread is the main source of carbohydrate. Yogurt can help to digest.

Basically, for breakfast, I am going to make sandwich. For lunch, I am making sandwich again. For dinner, there will be another sandwich!

blogpost 4 revised: Too Much Science

In his new book “In Defense of Food,” Michael Pollan argues that western diets should escape from the nutritionist approach and follow the common sense approach. He establishes a statement that people should not depend too much on nutruitionism because it is “bad science”. He advises people should “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” to escape from nutruitionism. However, after reading his book, I am confused about his opinions of science. Although, Pollan is trying to criticize that science does not work on food, he still uses a lot of scientific evidence and analysis to prove the argument. In my view, his arguments are not effective and comprehensive enough for readers.

Pollan uses many professional scientific terms to establish his arguments, but they are not necessary. For example, Pollan writes abstruse words such as cell membranes to explain what Omega-3 and Omega-6 are and how they affect people. Nevertheless, do readers really care about how Omega-3 and Omega-6 work scientifically in the human body? The answer is no. Readers are not scientists, so they are not interested in understanding every complicated scientific word. They only care about the fact that people who consume less Omega-3 become less healthy.

Though Pollan always uses science to explain how food affects people’s health, the scientific reasoning can be proven wrong. For instance, Pollan suggests people to drink wine because scientific research shows that people who drink wine are healthier. However, wine may not make people healthy at all. People who drink wine are on average richer than people who do not. Rich people certainly have better house, better health care, and cleaner environment in which they live in, plus they dramatically worry less about financial problems. All of these can be the reasons that they are healthier.

Although Pollan points out that science cannot explain the nutruitionism very well in the beginning, he still uses a lot of scientific analysis to claim how and what we should eat in the later part of the book. For instance, Pollan argues that calories cannot indicate whether food is healthy or not. Nevertheless, he also encourages people to eat more plant-based food later because plant-based food has fewer calories, which protect people from many types of cancers. On the one hand, Pollan mentions that nutritionism is “bad science,” but on the other hand, he uses science to explain that plant-based food is healthy. This contradiction confuses the readers and weakens his arguments. Another advice is more illogical: although he says food cannot be simply broken down into nutrients, he still suggests to “being the kind of person who takes nutrimental supplements (multivitamin-and-mineral pill).”

Pollan does not offer enough evidence and arguments from different perspectives. Culture, history, and environment in addition to science are also critical to change eating habits. In fact, they affect people's eating habits more than science does. For example, the Japanese eat fish because of their culture and living environment, but not because of science. Although he mentions some influence of culture, his analysis of culture is too brief to convince readers. In his book, he presents an unbalanced load of different categories of arguments, as the scientific arguments exceeding all the rest by a significant quantity.

In all, Pollan uses too much scientific analysis and evidence for his arguments. Many people do not truly understand these arguments and become even more. After reading his book, I do not have impression on his main idea that nutritionism is bad science. Perhaps the best way to encourage readers to eat more healthily is to write the book in layman style and not pack the readers’ minds with too much science.

Is This The End??? Not Yet / Definitely

I have a couple of solutions on what to do with this blog, now that the class and the semester has almost ended:

1. I'd like to think this blog would be carried on by people taking ENGL 1101 Foodies in the coming semester and years (assuming there is still a Foodies course at GT then). We could have new people joining this blog who would continue to post their journey through this course, like we did. We would occasionally check the blog for new posts, but obviously we wouldn't post much (because we would be busy with other classes)... sort of occasional advice to students taking the course at that time. If we're the first to do this, we'd be like pioneers of the Foodie blogs at GT. Even if the section designations are different (other than P4, G5, E3), the URL could be modified on the Blogger server and all the followers would be informed.

2. Take the blog off the net after the semester ends. Yes, heart-wrenching as that sounds (and is), this was strictly a course-based activity, and after the course has ended... we should have nothing to do with it. I know we've put our hearts and minds and our lives into this, but let's not make this bigger than it actually is.

These are my preferred outcomes. What I would not like to see... is a status quo - i.e. leave the blog as it is. What am I expected to do then? Continue posting when I'm too busy to do so? Put it in my past, which I know will be hard to do, especially if some of us continue to post? And feel guilty about not posting, thereby ensuring that everybody thinks you just posted for the grade? I can probably live with it, though.

Feel free to disagree.

Is this the end??

Hmmm....I was just wondering.....Has anyone thought about what is going to happen to this entire food blog,now that class is over.Our blog can still be viewed by millions using the internet,I'm sure some may use it as a reference for recipes...Maybe some as references for their own essays(lol).But this is like a public forum,in which we speak out to the world...Our thoughts,ideas and works are floating around in cyber space(if you want ot put it that way).haha....that's sort of amazing!I guess we'll all be blogging most probably for English 1102 So what do you think is going to happen to this foodie blog?Dr. Tiff. do you have the answer?

New Dining Hall!

So as many as you may know Georgia Tech is starting construction on a new dining hall on the east side of campus very soon! They have already closed the few real food establishments on North Ave. in preparation of construction. There are rumours that this dining hall will be open 24 hours a day. Which would be nice because when I am up late at night studying I get hungry and it would be great if I could just go across North Ave. and get a warm bite to eat! They are also going to have an outdoor patio and LEED Gold certified, which basically means it will appease all those people who want to save the world. If you guys are interested in this check out the page on the GT site located here http://www.housing.gatech.edu/projects/index.cfm

The price of pizza these days

Just like everyone else I have been studying for the last week like I have never studied before in my life. So today I thought I would reward myself with a nice pizza. Getting tired of the dining hall I called up the local Pizza Hut and asked if they had any deals. I found the worker to be quite ill tempered and she got mad at me because I didn't know exactly what I wanted when I called. So then I called Papa John's and the cheapest pizza they had was about $8 with any reasonable toppings. On top of that they wanted $5 worth of delivery and taxes. I remember the days when you could walk into a Pizza Hut or Papa Johns and get a personal pizza for $3 . Unfortunately I gave up on my pizza hunt and sadly got a burger at the dining hall :( . Oh well, maybe when I am off for my break I can reward my hard working with some home cooked ribs :)

ChocoCraving

So I'm not sure what's going on but I had my first hard core chocolate craving today. Crazy coming from a girl who thinks Milky Way bars look gross and the smell of Reese's turns my stomach upside down. I think the stress of finals is finally setting in as my one and only Calc final approaches tomorrow. Not only do I feel unprepared, but also completely lost in anything my TA does.

Official first ChocoCraving: December 6, 2009

Specifications: I want dark, bitter chocolate

My Cure: Coffee... bitterness is what I was looking for

Monster Energy Drink

It looks like Monster energy drink is the biggest sponsor for Georgia Tech. I often see the Monster vans parking in the campus and some Monster staffs giving free Monsters to Tech students. And during this dead week, they were sending the Monsters in the library. How smart they are! They know Georgia Tech Students need the Monsters to boost energy for studying!

I also got two Monsters from the One Night Stand on Friday. One is purple color (names MIXXD and another is orange color (names KHAOS). I drank the purple one today, which is a grape flavor taste. Honestly, it tastes really good, like grape Fanta and much better than Red Bull.
On the can, it says that Monster is the juice mixed energy drink, which contains B vitamins + Taurine +Ginseng +L-carnitine. Follow Michael Pollan's opinion, Monster is probably unhealthy for us because it makes a big health claim. So what does Monster exactly contain?


Calories 220, Sugars 54g, Calcium 40mg, Sodium 20mg. All these numbers are quite same as soft drinks.
Vitamin B: B2 3.4mg, B3 40mg, B6 4mg, B12 12mcg. I know Vitamin B is a scientific proven energy source
Taurine is 2000mg, Panax Ginseng 400mg. They are very unfamiliar to me.
Energy Blend 5000mg: Glucose, Caffeine, Guarana, L-Carnitine, Glucuronolactone, Inositol, Maltodextrin. I am extremely worried about this blend. First, I have no idea about most of them. Second, I think Glucuronolactone is unpronounceable for most people. Third, this blend contains seven ingredients, which are more than Pollan's suggestion of five ingredients in all. Fourth, the accurate amounts of these ingredients are very unclear. It can be 4999mg caffeine! Remember, the amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee is between 90mg-150mg.

I drank one when I felt sleepy this afternoon. Unfortunately, it does not work well for me. After drinking it, I still felt sleepy and then I had a terrible nap. Caffeine made me have a dreamy exhausted nap. I am still a little dizzy now. I do not know if it works for other people, but I am sure it is unhealthy food.

Overdue Post: Dead Week & GT's Influence

Before I indulge the craziness that this post will entail, there are a few things that I would like to mention in order to emphasize the insanity.

1. Last week from Monday to Thursday at Midnight, you can get a free donut and energy drink (Monster) from the Library Atrium.

2. I never drank energy drinks before going to Georgia Tech except one time, which led to my friends banning me from every drinking them (Why? I'm afraid even I do not know o.o)

3. Recent days I've spent my time on the highest floor in the library, where one day I saw this on the wall: "I've been imagining having ... in the library. What has Georgia Tech done to me?"

With that last question, I also began thinking of an answer, which I reached Thursday night/Friday early morning.

Near midnight Thursday night, I went to the Library Atrium with my boyfriend and his roommates. I was on a mission for donuts whereas my boyfriend and his roommates were after getting all the energy drinks they can get. Initially, the line was long but after the first run-through the line, the line got incredibly shorter. The donuts definitely ran out within the first fifteen minutes; doughnuts actually ran out right after our group reached the table. On the other hand, the Monsters were nowhere near depletion. The people running the stand were actually having a little competition between themselves of who can distribute the most of one particular kind of Monster: blue or green.

In the end, we acquired 17 Monsters, which somewhat overflowed from my friend's fridge. We had to drink a few of them. One roommate of my boyfriend remained in the dorm, where he

was lying on the floor. As we had to drink some of the Monsters, another roommate rolled one to another roommate, who immediately opened and drank it... the Monster spilled all over the floor. We were in for a crazy night.

So what is my answer to what Georgia Tech has done to me? After watching my boyfriend be tricked to jugging down one Monster and then drinking 3 Monsters myself, I'd say that Georgia Tech has made me a more daring/bold person to try new things with only the sky as the limit, which may or may not be a good thing considering I'm already quite a trigger happy person.

Aftermath of Crazy Night (Round One):

P.S. Monster, Monster, Monster, Monster, Monster, Monster!

P.S.S. Drink with caution. Exceeding three may lead to undesired consequences.

P.S.S.S. Green > Blue Monster. Also, can there be that many S's after P?

What to Avoid

So a few days ago I had a little dessert called a Little Debbie cupcake. I decided to keep the wrapper and see what our dear old friend Mr. Pollan had to say about the ingredients.

Please recall that in his book In Defense of Food Pollan tells us this:
Avoid food products containing ingredients that are A) Unfamiliar, B) Unpronounceable, C) More than five in number, or that include D) High-fructose corn syrup.

Here is a list of all the ingredients in one Little Debbie cupcake:
Sugar, water, enriched bleached flour (wheat flour, barley malt, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate [vitamin B1], riboflavin, [vitamin B2], folic acid), soybean oil, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, sorbitol, eggs, cocoa processed with alkali, invert sugar, partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil with TBHQ to preserve flavor.

It continues: Contains 2% or less of each of the following: palm and palm kernel oil, corn starch, maltodextrin, modified corn starch, salt, chocolate, whey (milk), natural and artificial flavors, emulsifiers (sorbitan monostearate, mono- and diglycerides, polysorbate 60, propylene glycol monosterate, sodium lactylate, soy lecithin), leavening (sodium acid pyrophasphate, baking soda, calcium phosphate), colors (caramel color, titanium dioxide, red 40), dextrose, calcium carbonate, calcium sulfate, agar, locust bean gum, sodium hexametaphosphate, lactic acid, calcium lactate, guar gum, xanthan gum, sorbic acid (to retain freshness), citric acid.
Going back to Pollan's criteria, we must conclude that by his standards Little Debbie cupcakes are NOT food.

With that many different unpronounceable and unfamiliar ingredients, I am starting to regret putting it in my mouth in the first place. I hope my tummy can forgive me after it figures out what to do with all of these strange chemicals.

This New Diet Thing

So in case anyone has been wondering how trying out Michael Pollan's way of living is going then here we go. It's actually not that hard at all. There were only a couple things I really had to give up and I've been doing fine without my South Beach cereal bars and oatmeal. When I started on this new diet, a big fear of mine was feeling weak because I have low blood sugar but I actually have yet to have a big crash. Usually, I'll have something that will just make my head start spinning but not yet. This is really reassuring to me because I might have finally found a diet that suits me. I have been cooking a lot more for myself, especially over the holiday break. I told my mom about what I was doing and I got a vibe filled with a mixture of impressed and annoyed. She already has to deal with my "I don't like that food" attitude, so now she just has it even worse. But I think that she truly likes the idea of eating true foods and not foods out of a box or can or bag or wherever they find to stuff "food." Mom and I actually prepared dinner together on my last night there which consisted of Chicken Stuffed Ravioli we made with a Olive Oil and Pesto sauce. Everything by the book. It was good, but we decided that over Winter Break we would work out some truly delectable dishes to serve for dinner. The greatest part was watching my younger sister tear into 6 raviolis and finishing them like a champ. Food for the family is exactly what came to mind. I can't wait to get back and start making dinner for the family. Since I'll have a lot more free time, I've promised to cook more for the family. Mom is constantly rushing and doing everything herself. I though it would be nice to either help with the burden or take it all together. This also let's me try out new ideas for recipes and try to feed my family some quality meals by Pollan's standards. I really want to start trying to cook a lot more with tofu.

Does anyone have any recipes that might work? I'm completely lost here.

Kilwin’s candy shop at Atlantic Station

Hard and soft candys; lolipops; ice cream...

Every type of our dream candy in our childhood(or right now!), Kilwin’s candy shop at Atlantic Station has them...

Recommandation:

Apples covered with caramels, peanuts or peacan:

Just imagine such a thing in your head: the refreshing smell of the fresh apple; the big round chocolate color; the sour apple covered with sweet and sticky caramels with chocolate and nuts outside... The amazing side of it just shown and shane with no shame! It is such a good treat during a movie!

Rice crispy or mashmelow covered with chocolate:

I personnally do not like mashmelow so I always choose rice crispy. Still super good. Soft fragrant inside, smooth chocolate with cute candy decoration outside... Has both fantastic look and taste!

Other small little things:

Ice cream over there is really good too; a lot kinds of lolipops: animals, christmas trees, flowers...; however, I do not like the fudge over there since I tried two kinds of them but all I got is the sweeeeet sweeeet taste, nothing else,,, too sweet that made me want to puke... Also, it is more expensive and probably less health than the dinning hall too,,, so just considering it a treat after final is a good idea.. not good for everyday!

PS, enjoy the pictures!!!
fore more info: http://atlanta.metromix.com/restaurants/photogallery/kilwin-s-candy-shop/1197379/content

quadruple Burger!!!!!!

Everyone knows that the food in Britain is worse than the food in Woodruff.

However, in Woodruff, you don't get dubble cheeseburger, or triple cheeseburger, or.... quadruple CHEESEBURGER!!!

So, the other day, I went to Britain with my friend, and he got a BIG cheeseburger, like, A BIG ONE. So I decided to count how many picese of meat there were, the answer is: four!!! I was so surprised that I took a picture of it as shown on the left side.It was so big but since it is made in Britain, so it is not that thick as it should be... I bet students at tech knows what I mean...

Anyways,,,

life is full of surprise !!! not only at tech!!!

Personal Review: Team 5 & Team 4 presentations

I enjoyed the Final Project Cookbookettes presentations by Team 4 and Team 5 yesterday. It's always a treat when somebody other than the instructor stands up in front of the class and talks (nothing against you, Dr. Tiff, I like you a lot too). In any case, here is short review about what I felt about the presentations/websites. Please don't take any of this personally, I like all of you (even those who criticize me) this is just my opinion. I don't expect my group website to be better than anyone else, but we'll see today anyhow.

Team 5: Korean For GT Foodies

First off, it was brave of you to choose Korean cuisine as the subject. It's hard enough to do a project on a familiar subject, let alone a website on foreign cuisine. How you guys managed to learn Korean cooking skills, techniques, recipes and a palate in less than two months is beyond me. Kudos. I know my team members will cringe when I say this: we chose an easy subject when we chose chocolate desserts.

Thumbs Up:

I liked the soft brown and yellow theme of the website (gives it distinctly Asian overtones), the overall structure and the recipe pages design. It was great how you varied the recipe selection by including some simple and incredibly complicated ones, desserts, entrees, and appetizers. You covered a lot of ground in 5 recipes, and gave us all a Korean history lesson to boot! Those spirit-style personas were a nice touch too.

Thumbs Down:

You could have put up more original content on the website. I would have enjoyed this "cookbookette unveiling" more had the presentation been a little more fluid and professional.

Team 4: College Microwave Cookbookette

Another great unique idea: What do college students lack? Mom, money and time. What do they have? Microwaves and fridges. Why not make a college microwave cookbookette targeting this group? Yet, I have never seen, heard or read about such a thing in the market. I mean, if you connect the dots... it seems all very simple. Maybe the rest of us out there are just idiots.

Thumbs Up:

You guys really got into the whole college thing. What better way to select recipes than to ask college students themselves through a survey? Brilliant. Lots of original content, pictures, videos (too bad they didn't work on the site) and an enthusiastic team manager. I liked the fact that most of you speaking were confident, loud and comfortable with what they were talking about. It's clear you put in loads of work into this.

Thumbs Down:

I'm not a huge fan of the website design and structure. The colors, themes and fonts were sort of off-putting.

Well, I've tried to keep the criticisms short and to the point. Please forgive me if I overlooked any aspects of your team's websites, content, presentation, etc. I wasn't taking notes - all this is from memory. Now this also means that I've set my group up for a higher standard of evaluation. I should not be surprised then, to find a laundry list of complaints about my group's cookbookettes later. FML.

Yet again this is Hasan, helping you sort Internet trash from Internet treasure. (Though there is no trash here to speak of - you were all great.)

Pie-A-Professor for Charity

Well, you asked for it, Dr. Tiff.

So there was an event organized by the Student Movement for Real Change - GT Chapter at the Campanile for charity called "Pie-A-Professor". Seizing this opportunity as one of the few penalty-free fun things to do during dead week (or when you're frustrated), I proceeded to pie Dr. Tiff in the face.

Dr. Tiff before the assault:

Dr. Tiff in the aftermath:

That was pretty brave of you, professor, and very nice of you to do something like this for those Kenyan and Brazilian kids. Please note that I thoroughly enjoy your class, this was nothing personal.

P.S.: The "pie" was basically a paper plate of Cool Whip. I almost wish it was a crusted pie on a metallic oven pan, but that would have probably broken noses.